My motorhome turns 20 years old in a couple of weeks, so I thought it would be nice to buy it something special for its birthday. I have decided to upgrade the current battery system and solar charging system, budgeted $2,000 for this project, and so far I am on track to come in under budget at about $1,850 spent total.
The current setup was last updated in 2015, and consist of 4 100 watt solar panels wired in parallel, feeding a 35 amp PWM controller, which feeds a pair of 6V GC2 225AH golf cart batteries, which is connected to the various house loads including a Xantrex Prowatt SW 2000 pure sine inverter, for shore charging it has a Progressive Dynamics 9260 converter (60 amp).
So far I have bought a pair of 200AH ReBel LiFePo4 batteries, a Renogy 50 amp DC-DC charger with integrated MPPT solar controller, plus BT-2 module (both being delivered in the morning), along with various breakers, fuses, battery cables, etc. and one of these cheap $20 100 amp shunt meters https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W7XXKVF/ for initial testing.
I know the PD9260 is not an ideal charging source, but based on threads here regarding its charge profile it seems to be acceptable if the "charge wizard" is used to manually control full charging since boosts at 14.4VDC for 4 hours, then lowers to 13.6 for normal charging, and it floats at 13.2VDC in "storage" mode. (the converter goes into storage mode after it senses 30 hours without significant battery use, then boosts to 14.4V for 15 minutes once every 21 hours).
The batteries I bought were some discounted price mis-made 200AH batteries from ReBel batteries ReBel posted a video on these last month, to sum it up they tried ordering from a new supplier, and the batteries were not built fully to spec, most significantly the bluetooth switch is not waterproof, and they shipped with a 100A not a 150A smart BMS. At under $700 each before shipping I could not pass them up for 200AH Bluetooth enabled smart LiFePo4 batteries (same BMS as is in their 100AH batteries), they also have a total of 12 cells, (with 3X70AH cells in parallel, X4 in series, instead of the specced 4X single 200A cell)
For those of you that are still reading, what should I do with them when they get here?
I may not have time to install them in the RV for a few weeks with the holidays coming up, should I fully charge and load test them using the cheap shunt meter, the only handy charging source I have without pulling the PD9260 out of the RV is a 5a CV/CC bench supply, additional test equipment on hand is a Fluke 87V with i410 AC/DC clamp meter, and a HP / Agilent 54622A 2-channel 100 MHz Oscilloscope. I might also be able to rig up a higher amp power supply input to the Renogy DC-DC 50Amp MPPT controller, similar to what Will Prowse did in his review video of the Renogy unit.
thanks Ike
The current setup was last updated in 2015, and consist of 4 100 watt solar panels wired in parallel, feeding a 35 amp PWM controller, which feeds a pair of 6V GC2 225AH golf cart batteries, which is connected to the various house loads including a Xantrex Prowatt SW 2000 pure sine inverter, for shore charging it has a Progressive Dynamics 9260 converter (60 amp).
So far I have bought a pair of 200AH ReBel LiFePo4 batteries, a Renogy 50 amp DC-DC charger with integrated MPPT solar controller, plus BT-2 module (both being delivered in the morning), along with various breakers, fuses, battery cables, etc. and one of these cheap $20 100 amp shunt meters https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W7XXKVF/ for initial testing.
I know the PD9260 is not an ideal charging source, but based on threads here regarding its charge profile it seems to be acceptable if the "charge wizard" is used to manually control full charging since boosts at 14.4VDC for 4 hours, then lowers to 13.6 for normal charging, and it floats at 13.2VDC in "storage" mode. (the converter goes into storage mode after it senses 30 hours without significant battery use, then boosts to 14.4V for 15 minutes once every 21 hours).
The batteries I bought were some discounted price mis-made 200AH batteries from ReBel batteries ReBel posted a video on these last month, to sum it up they tried ordering from a new supplier, and the batteries were not built fully to spec, most significantly the bluetooth switch is not waterproof, and they shipped with a 100A not a 150A smart BMS. At under $700 each before shipping I could not pass them up for 200AH Bluetooth enabled smart LiFePo4 batteries (same BMS as is in their 100AH batteries), they also have a total of 12 cells, (with 3X70AH cells in parallel, X4 in series, instead of the specced 4X single 200A cell)
For those of you that are still reading, what should I do with them when they get here?
I may not have time to install them in the RV for a few weeks with the holidays coming up, should I fully charge and load test them using the cheap shunt meter, the only handy charging source I have without pulling the PD9260 out of the RV is a 5a CV/CC bench supply, additional test equipment on hand is a Fluke 87V with i410 AC/DC clamp meter, and a HP / Agilent 54622A 2-channel 100 MHz Oscilloscope. I might also be able to rig up a higher amp power supply input to the Renogy DC-DC 50Amp MPPT controller, similar to what Will Prowse did in his review video of the Renogy unit.
thanks Ike
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